Palm Sunday, Year B When they had sung the hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. 27 And Jesus said to them, "You will all become deserters; for it is written, 'I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.' 28 But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee." 29 Peter said to him, "Even though all become deserters, I will not." 30 Jesus said to him, "Truly I tell you, this day, this very night, before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times." 31 But he said vehemently, "Even though I must die with you, I will not deny you." And all of them said the same. 32 They went to a place called Gethsemane; and he said to his disciples, "Sit here while I pray." 33 He took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be distressed and agitated. 34 And he said to them, "I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and keep awake." 35 And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. 36 He said, "Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want." 37 He came and found them sleeping; and he said to Peter, "Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep awake one hour? 38 Keep awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." 39 And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. 40 And once more he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy; and they did not know what to say to him. 41 He came a third time and said to them, "Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? Enough! The hour has come; the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 42 Get up, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand." (Mark 14:26-42 NRSV “NO JOKE” Today is both April first and Palm Sunday, an unusual combination. For a long time the first day of April has been called “April Fools’ Day” or “All Fools’ Day”. The origins of this are unknown. It might have started with ancient festivals but nowadays is most often marked by practical jokes. You know, pinning the “Kick me” sign on someone’s back, the dribble glass, and so forth. The “fool” is the individual who is tricked. There can be some kind of deceit involved. You can see where this could get quite mean rather quickly. I guess I tend to see the point of view of the one who is tricked and so don’t really care for pranks. There was a TV show years ago called “Candid Camera” for which they photographed the expressions of people who would see something ridiculous, like a dog driving a car. Other times they would play tricks on people, misguide them in some way and then watch their reactions. One time they had a hidden camera in a hotel room. The TV set didn’t work and people would call down to the desk and complain. The desk attendant would say that he was turning it on and nothing would happen, and typically the people would get angry and call back, and get angrier and angrier. One person who took the room was Mr. Rogers, Fred Rogers, the pioneer in TV programming for children. They didn’t hear a complaint from the room. So they called him. He said, “Oh, we really don’t watch TV.” Their attempt to make a celebrity angry and embarrass him publicly didn’t work because of how gentle he was. The trick was on them. As I said, I don’t like pranks. I do like jokes. Humor, too, involves some kind of “trick”, a surprise, what you were expecting is not there, as in these jokes from a Wisconsin pastor who hosts a humor night at a local coffee shop: Where was the Declaration of Independence signed? *At the bottom of the page What can you never eat for breakfast? *Lunch & dinner If you throw a red stone into the blue sea what it will become? *Wet If you had three apples and four oranges in one hand and four apples and three oranges in other hand, what would you have? *Very large hands If it took eight men ten hours to build a wall, how long would it take four men to build it? *No time at all, the wall is already built. Humor is light-hearted, with the ability to bring people together, sharing in a joyous experience. That is the mood of that day when Jesus came into Jerusalem. Jesus rides in on a colt. People spread their cloaks and leafy branches on the road and shouted: Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming dominion of our ancestor David!” All this has the suggestion that Jesus is coming as a king, a new king, the Messiah in the line of David. They are hopeful that this is the time; their freedom from Roman rule has come. But we know that the week will not continue on in this hopeful note. There is a surprise. The great excitement of this day will not last. As the week unfolds, Jesus will drive the money changers from the Temple and have many confrontations with the authorities. They will plot against him. He will predict the destruction of the Temple. There are signs of trouble ahead and a special meal, a last supper. And Jesus will predict that they will leave him at the hour of his arrest. They scoff, say that this will not be so, but they cannot even stay awake while he prays. They can’t deliver on their ideals. When this does come to pass, they will not act as they thought they would. They will be shocked at how different the reality is from their hopes. This would all be tragic if it were not for the meaning of the week. It begins with celebration, but in the middle of the week there is betrayal, abandonment, arrest. It starts out with hope, but by the middle all hope seems lost. If all you have is the beginning, you might feel you had been tricked. They cannot see the end. That is where the real hope lies. It is not actually the end, but a beginning of something even more glorious than they had imagined. Here, though, in the middle of the week, as described by the Gospel reading, we have the failure of the disciples. By the end of the week they will find forgiveness. Here the road seems to lead to Jesus’ death. By the end of the week it will lead to the defeat of death. By the end of the week they will find something different than what they hoped for at first. The road today is lined with palms, but it is an enthusiasm they could not and we cannot maintain. By the end of the week we might find that it is not all up to us, that we have a Savior. What we will find from this week, when seen with faith, is that when we disappoint God, God will not disappoint us. The disciples did not act that week in the way that they would have hoped to. The week did not turn out as they thought it would. Circumstances can change, but even from that we can see a new path, although not one we would have chosen at first. The unexpected can open our eyes in new ways, to new things. We can start out with a fantasy and end up with reality. Pam Kidd talks about a lesson from the unexpected. Soon after she and her husband were married, they were off to a mission parish in Appalachia. They went from a world of plenty into one of poverty—lacking a sanitation system, a landscape defaced by strip mining, uneducated people living wretchedly simple lives. When they were wondering about what to change first, personal disaster struck. Her doctor ordered complete bed rest from complications of an ectopic pregnancy. People from the town brought pies and casseroles each day. People cleaned their house and did the laundry. She describes what happened: “People came to sit and talk, share their own tragedies. ... Faith no longer seemed a dry abstraction debated by textbook intellectuals. Here, faith was living, breathing, reaching out. It was as real as the smell of hot rhubarb cobbler, as clean as the white sheets laundered by a neighbor woman, as sure as the words of comfort offered by a retired miner. Funny, how David and I had thought to change these people. God had other plans when He sent us to that faraway place.” What we will find in the unfolding of this week is the purpose for Christ’s coming to our world. It was not so that we could be confident of our flawless behavior, our perfection in our following him, but that we find God’s mercy and grace. Behind all this is God’s generosity. God does not leave us in failure. We are not stuck in the middle of the week. That is why this week is not what it seems at the beginning. It starts with celebration and will come back to it, but the week ahead is a serious week. What we will be celebrating at Easter is, in fact, a serious matter. It is the fulfillment of our deepest hopes and dreams. But they are not the dreams at the start. With the people lining the way with palms, it is easy to lose sight of what this day means. It is a day of joy, but for different reasons than many of those in the crowd think. It will be a week of frustrated hopes for them as Jesus goes from the procession in the street to his arrest. But for those who see things differently, it is a week of fulfilled hopes. We learn that we are not alone. We learn that God has provided a way to keep our failures from defeating us. We learn that God’s plan triumphs over human wickedness. We learn that there is no shortcut around life’s difficulties. And we look forward to the greatest celebration, the Resurrection, when death itself is defeated.